Back To Routine–We HopeWe resumed our updates of the Daily Labor News Digest this morning. We may possibly be a bit late with
tomorrow’s update depending on how soon our web host completes scheduled server
maintenance downtime. We also hope that CWA can win an acceptable agreement and
that there will be no disruption in our AT&T DSL service.

We had taken a few days off from
updating the site to prepare for the New Crises, New Agendas conference held
this past weekend. We’ll have an article on the conference up soon. The two most
common comments I heard from folks were that the eleven hours of sessions went
by too quick and that there should have been more people there. I would have to
agree with both.

Most of the conference was audio and/or video
recorded. Stuart Elliott from Kansas Workbeat,
and Mary Erio, took lots of photos. We will eventually post texts of
presentations if available, and recorded versions of most everything else.

Because of a schedule crunch my remarks on the
lessons of the economic mobilization during World War II were somewhat reduced.
I promised conference participants the prepared text would be posted right away
and you can view it by clicking here.

Longer Fuse Only Delays
Explosion
The usually perceptive Steven Greenhouse had an interesting article in the
Sunday New York Times entitled “In America, Labor Has an Unusually Long
Fuse.” He begins reviewing recent working class actions in Europe–the
35,000-strong march against the G20 summit; much more massive strikes and
demonstrations in France, supplemented by taking bosses hostage in the face of
plant closings; plant occupations in Ireland, including occupied Belfast; 15,000
angry German workers protesting at GM’s European headquarters. He could have
added even Canadian autoworkers have held sit-downs. If you follow our Daily
Labor News Digest you know all about these actions and more.

Then Greenhouse goes on to say,

“The country of Mother Jones,
John L. Lewis and Walter Reuther certainly has had a rich and sometimes militant
history of labor protest — from the Homestead Steel Works strike against Andrew
Carnegie in 1892 to the auto workers’ sit-down strikes of the 1930s and the
67-day walkout by 400,000 G.M. workers in 1970.

“But in recent decades, American
workers have increasingly steered clear of such militancy, for reasons that
range from fear of having their jobs shipped overseas to their self-image as
full-fledged members of the middle class, with all its trappings and
aspirations.”

Greenhouse quotes some professors
about the rugged individualist streak that American workers purportedly possess.
He also spoke with the well known militant Jerry Tucker who observed,

“You have a general diminution of
union leadership that was focused on defending workers by any means necessary.
The message from the union leadership nowadays often is, ‘We don’t have any
choice, we have to go down this concessionary road to see if we can do damage
control.’”

Steelworkers president Leo
Gerard, son of a Canadian socialist, was another expert Greenhouse consulted,

“Leo Gerard, president of the
United Steelworkers, said there were smarter things to do than demonstrating
against layoffs — for instance, pushing Congress and the states to make sure the
stimulus plan creates the maximum number of jobs in the United States. ‘I
actually believe that Americans believe in their political system more than
workers do in other parts of the world,’ Mr. Gerard said.”

This assertion is only partially
correct. There is in fact a deep running cynicism about politics. Typically,
about half the working class doesn’t participate in the political process even
by voting. But it is true that the mainstream labor statespersons–among whom
Gerard would be considered “left”–have done a thorough job in extinguishing any
vision of the working class advancing our own agenda in the political arena.

Of course, you don’t demonstrate
against “partners” in the workplace and certainly not against “friends” in
government. You try to help your employer partner beat all competition, domestic
but especially foreign, and you watch the backs of your friends in Washington,
hoping some day to see sixty friends in the Senate. Last December SEIU president
Andy Stern said in The Nation that labor’s task was “to make sure that
what the President wants to get done, gets done.”

I have to admit that I have been
wrong about some of my predictions about President Obama. Writing in last
December 21 Week In Review about conditions attached to the emergency bridge
loans Bush granted GM and Chrysler I said, “Since the measures are so draconian,
Obama may very well make a gesture of alleviating some.” Man was I wrong about
that.

What this President “wants to get
done” in auto is far harsher than anything Bush suggested. The auto task force,
headed de facto by private equity mogul Steven Rattner, envisions a General
Motors shrunk to just Chevrolet and Cadillac. They are frankly dubious about
Chrysler’s viability and won’t palaver with them further unless they bring in
Fiat to take charge. The gut wrenching cuts in wages, working conditions, health
and pension benefits demanded from the UAW for both active and retired members
will likely still be insufficient to meet Rattner’s goals--meaning bankruptcy
and a complete rewrite of the contract starting from scratch.

This is the result of the “smart”
alternative of relying on friends in the political process rather than the
exuberant antics of the Europeans and Canadians demonstrating in the streets and
occupying plants. Well, brothers Gerard, Stern, and Gettelfinger, I’d like to
know why if you’re so smart we’re so poor?

You’ve kept the fuse long. But
eventually it will ignite a mighty explosion. I’d suggest our leaders not be
standing too close to their partners and friends when this working class finally
erupts.

Keeping Health A Private
Matter
My wife Mary watched a PBS Frontline special last year where Washington Post
reporter T.R. Reid did a pretty good job at comparing healthcare systems in
five different countries–Britain, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, and Switzerland. While
there were many differences they all had three things in common. They spent a
lot less of their national wealth on healthcare than the U.S.; they had better
health results than the U.S.; and none permitted for profit insurance companies
to control access to healthcare.

When Mary heard Frontline was
showing another segment with Reid comparing different setups in the USA she
tuned in. She was disappointed. The clear message from Reid’s earlier work–keep
for profit insurance out of basic healthcare–seemed muted. There was in fact a
pitch for the insurance robber barons included in the show.

Only later did we learn that a
furious Reid disowned the documentary, altered after it had been completed.
Welcome to the real world of “public” television.

An openly commercial network, CBS, showed far more
integrity with a Sixty Minutes segment The Recession's Impact: Closing The Clinic.
It’s about the shutting down of the cancer outpatient clinic at Nevada’s only
public hospital because of the budget crisis. Most of the patients were “middle
class” workers who had lost their jobs and health insurance. For many it is
literally a death sentence.

In California a half-million have
lost health insurance since the beginning of the recession.

The last of President Obama’s Regional Forums on
Health Care is being held today in Los Angeles. Substantial numbers of members
from the thirty area unions that have endorsed the Labor for Single-Payer Campaignwill be outside demanding healthcare as
a right.

The campaign is also setting a
national day of action, calling on all supporters to join in local events
supporting a "Medicare for All" solution on May 30 while many Members of
Congress will be in their home districts.

Life After Harvard
After President Obama’s chief economic adviser was none too gently nudged out of
his post as president of Harvard he spent the last two years in New York on what
he has described as part-time work in the hedge segment of the financial sector.
Larry Summers’ earnings advising investment strategies for DE Shaw & Co. during
this time was a measly 5.2 million. In addition he picked up 2.7 million in
speaker honoraria.

Contrast this to the poor
national security adviser, General James Jones, who had to make do with 900,000
from the Chamber of Commerce, 330,000 from Boeing, and 290,000 from Chevron.

The President’s social secretary,
Desiree Rogers, did a little better than the General. She drew more than a
million as a president of two gas companies, pocketed 350 grand from Allstate
Financial as president of its social-networking division, and another 150,000 in
board fees from Equity Residential.